510

Description

Our mahogany/spruce Dreadnought is a great choice for strummers and pickers looking for a strong, focused tone with a crisp response. The Dreadnought’s upper midrange emphasis forms the sweet spot of its voice, and rootsy guitarists will love the way the 510 articulates together with other instruments, especially on fast runs. Appointments include a grained ivoroid rosette, grained ivoroid binding, and a Century fretboard inlay.

The most traditional of guitar shapes, Bob Taylor has evolved the Taylor Dreadnought over time to honor its enduring sonic heritage yet also refine the look and sound into a more modern package. The Taylor Dreadnought still boasts that powerful dreadnought tone that old school pickers expect, with deep lows and crisp highs, but with a voice that, like every Taylor, is more evenly balanced across the entire tonal spectrum. Perhaps more than any other shape, the Dreadnought remains linked with roots music like bluegrass and folk, in part because of its traditional role in defining those sounds. Pickers and strummers with an aggressive attack will love our Dreadnought’s blend of power and articulation, which allows for clear lead lines and crisp, driving rhythms.

Taylor Top - Sitka Spruce

Origin: Northwestern North America (Coastal Rainforests of Alaska and Canada)

Used On: Most models

As a guitar soundboard, or top, Sitka spruce is the tonewood standard of the modern era. It’s used on 85-90 percent of the guitars that Taylor makes. Its combination of strength and elasticity translates into a broad dynamic range, yielding crisp articulation and allowing for everything from aggressive strumming and flatpicking to fingerpicking. Sitka spruce is Bob Taylor’s personal favorite for an all-around great guitar.

Goes Well With: All styles of guitars and players.

Taylor Body Wood - Tropical Mahogany

Origin: Central and South America

Used On: The 500 Series, Acoustic 5 Series, LKSM

Mahogany is a good wood to anchor a discussion of tones, as a lot of other wood tones can be described in relation to it. Its essential sonic profile is well represented in the midrange frequencies. Acoustic guitars in general tend to live in the midrange portion of the sound spectrum, but mahogany in particular displays a lot of midrange character. That thick, present midrange sound is sometimes described in guitar circles as meaty, organic or even “chewy” — wherever a player digs in on the fretboard, they’re tapping into the core of the harmonic content of what a guitar produces. Those great midrange frequencies produce overtones that stack up and produce bloom, giving the sound extra girth. When one hears the resulting harmonics, the “chewy” tone serves up a big mouthful of midrange. As a popular tonewood for many decades, mahogany has been used on scads of old school acoustic recordings, and that sonic heritage carries across various strains of roots music, from blues to folk to slack key.

Goes well with: A broad range of players and musical styles; people who like a well-balanced tone, nice dynamic range and a healthy serving of overtones. Blues and other rootsy players tend to respond well to mahogany’s midrange character. A smaller body mahogany guitar (GC or GA) might appeal to fingerstyle players, whereas more aggressive flatpickers might opt for a mahogany Dreadnought or GS. For versatility, a mahogany GA is a good bet. Because of mahogany’s midrange, a player with “dark hands” will tend to sound darker on a mahogany guitar. A bright player will sound slightly less bright.